STORY ARCHIVE

Brain Sell

TRANSCRIPT

Advertisers have always wanted to get inside our heads and they claim to be getting closer than ever to doing just that. Products and advertising campaigns built on breakthroughs in neuroscience are already on the market, but Maryanne Demasi explores whether they're assisting the delivery of products better suited to our wants, or hijacking our free will to buy what we need.

NARRATIONAdvertising is everywhere. Marketers are being challenged to find new and innovative ways to make their messages stand out. But do they really know what's cutting through? And how far will they go to find out?

Dr Maryanne DemasiAdvertisers are now teaming up with neuroscientists for answers. They're using brain imaging technology to literally look inside our heads.

NARRATIONIn the hope of selling a brand or message, advertisers are turning to a new field called neuro-marketing.

Dr Shane MoonNeuro-marketing is actually giving us the first look at an objective measure of consumer responses that isn't filtered from their more rational side of their brains.

NARRATIONDr Moon is using electro-encephalograms, or EEGs, to measure the brain's electrical activity while a subject watches a TV ad.

Dr Shane MoonWhat we're doing is recording from multiple sites on the brain. We typically use forty to sixty-four sites, and that captures a lot of the information across the brain.

NARRATIONThey also record eye-tracking information, so they can see exactly which part of the screen the subject is watching at any given time.

Dr Shane MoonWe're then able to go back and look at the eye-tracking overlaid with the specific ads, tied in with the specific brain activity recording, to then feed back to our client. What we're seeing here, Maryanne, is the recording from each of the electrode sites. And then what we're seeing here is a, a brain model of the recordings so that we can actually then start to understand which areas of the brain are being activated. Yellow is the stronger activation. Um, the darker the colours, the less activation. That's what we want to see.

Dr Maryanne DemasiSo you can actually see in real time different parts of the brain firing up?

Dr Shane MoonThat's right. So as the, the movie plays along, you actually will be able to see the brain changing as the EEG changes.

NARRATIONThis process can reveal the parts of an ad that elicit the strongest emotional response. And that's mainly what advertisers want to know.

Dr Shane MoonIf it's a concept ad, what parts of the concept are working, which parts aren't. And if it's a finished ad, we can go back and say, 'you've wasted your money,' if it wasn't working, or 'good job, your creative department has done a bang-on job.'

NARRATIONAdvertising veteran Don Jeffery believes we needs to know what motivates someone to buy a product.

Don JefferyIf we can capture and understand the emotions of the people that are buying a product, then our advertising is going to be far more effective. And if we want to hold our market share, we've got to put messages out there and convince people that they're doing the right thing buying our client's product.

NARRATIONA new course dedicated to neuro-marketing is now being taught at the University of Melbourne.

Dr Philip HarrisBy drawing on neuroscience-based tools, we hope to get a better understanding of different brain regions that contribute to decisions, and that will improve our theories of how decisions are made.

NARRATIONDr Philip Harris is particularly interested in knowing why people make impulsive decisions.

Dr Philip HarrisWe conducted some functional magnetic resonance imaging research, and by doing that, we were able to see which areas of the brain were actually involved in that decision-making process.

NARRATIONThis research has broader implications for other choices we make in everyday life.

Dr Philip HarrisAddiction-related issues are very much drawn on these same processes. So my choice of whether I will have that cigarette now or abstain and have a longer life, or whether I'll have that hamburger or a healthy meal. It's that same basic process of choosing immediate reward versus something that's better for me later on.

NARRATIONBut does neuro-marketing raise ethical issues?

Dr Maryanne DemasiIn research, we have ethics committees to monitor these things, but in the commercial world, these rules don't apply.

Professor Neil LevyIt might be used to give marketers information that we don't choose to give them. Then this could be seen as an invasion of privacy. A far more serious ethical issue, to my mind, is the manipulation of people's decisions. They are tempted by something, then you might be able to be manipulated into giving in and then regretting it subsequently.

Don JefferyShane and his team would be the only people that actually see the individual brain waves. We, we wouldn't see that. So I don't see that as a problem at all.

Dr Shane MoonI think it's important that people understand it is another tool. It's not going to replace focus groups, it's not going to replace online research. It's just another one in the toolbox that people need to be aware of. And depending on what they want to try to achieve, they can now use neuro-market research.